A deeper look at some of the key trends behind the data. Click the arrow to navigate through the insights:

Nike is the Most Loved Apparel Brand For Gen Z and Millennials

Despite, or perhaps because of the controversy Nike invited this year, young consumers have a strong connection to the brand. The apparel brand landed as the 12th Most Loved Brand among Gen Z and the 22nd among millennials.

Score:

Gen Z

240.4

Millennials

235.1

Gen X

217.6

Boomers

175.4

Anthem-kneeling has been one of the most politically charged debates in recent years, and Nike stepped into the middle of it by prominently sponsoring Colin Kaepernick. While this move was not without backlash, it illustrates how the company is thinking ahead – solidifying a brand identity that appeals to younger, more socially liberal consumers.

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Tech Companies Among the Most Trusted Brands

Concerns over privacy and security abound in the tech industry and have led to speculation about an imminent backlash driven by public distrust. However, when looking at Morning Consult’s trust metrics, tech companies still rank highly.

Below are the five brands that scored highest in trust:

Trust:

USPS

69%

Amazon

68%

UPS

68%

Google

67%

FedEx

66%

Other companies in the tech space, including Paypal (63%), Netflix (62%), and Microsoft (61%), also score notably high marks in the trust category.

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Gen Z Has A Highly Differentiated Set of Consumer Tastes

The oldest members of Gen Z are graduating college and entering the workforce. As this generation’s spending power increases and brands seek to win allegiance, their tastes will have an outsized impact on consumer culture.

The findings in this report indicate that Gen Z is the generation that looks least like the general population when it comes to brand preferences. Thirteen of Gen Z’s 25 Most Loved Brands don’t appear in the overall ranking. For Millennials and Gen X that number is just six.

Gen Zers are also much less likely than other generations to rank companies highly. Their average index score for all brands is 27 points below the adult average.

Avg Brand Score:

All Adults

95.7

Gen Z

68.5

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Netflix and Chick-Fil-A are the Most Highly Recommended Brands

Another of the four metrics that factors into the Most Loved Brands index score is Net Promoter Score. The Net Promoter Score is determined by asking consumers how likely they are to recommend a brand to people they know.

Below are the five brands that scored highest in this regard:

Net Promoter Score:

Netflix

65

Chick-Fil-A

57

Amazon

56

Carhartt

56

Samsung

56

No brand dominated a single category the way Netflix did, 8 points ahead of the closest competitor. As the streaming wars heat up, word of mouth appears to be a major edge for Netflix.

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A Rocky Start to 2019? Not For America’s Most Loved Brand

The surveys that form the basis of Most Loved Brands were fielded entirely in January and February of 2019. During this period, Amazon underwent two high profile controversies concerning CEO Jeff Bezos’ personal life and the cancelled headquarters move to New York. That it was nonetheless the Most Loved Brand during that period speaks to how much goodwill the company has built with consumers.

Amazon is not only the most loved overall, it is one of the top six in every demographic group tracked in this report.

The brand’s strengths include community impact – 59 percent of consumers believe Amazon has a positive impact in their local community (the 12th highest in that category). A separate survey found 72 percent of Americans support Amazon moving its headquarters to where they live.

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Google’s Dominant Product Suite Showcases Consumer Connection

Love for Google expands well into key service products, like Gmail and Chrome. The Most Loved Brands list excludes such services, but if they were included, Google would own three out of the top four spots and six out of the top 25 (including YouTube, a Google subsidiary).

Here is how each of their products stack up:

Google

Score: 261.1

Google Search

260.3

Google Maps

259.8

Gmail

240.1

Google Chrome

236

YouTube

236

Google’s product performance is even more impressive when isolating Gen Z – all six of these services and products would land a place in the top 10 for the youngest generation.

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Wellness Trends Haven’t Halted America’s Love for Fast Food

Wellness is having a moment, and brands across a wide array of sectors are repositioning their products in order to capitalize. But if this ranking is any indication, those trends haven’t come at the expense of beloved fast food brands like Dairy Queen. Below are the most loved food brands:

Score:

Hershey

244.2

Cheerios

241.2

Subway

233.4

Dairy Queen

230.4

Chick-Fil-A

230.1

Some of the food brands in this report have made efforts to play up their healthier side, such as Subway (Eat Fresh) and Cheerios (Heart Healthy). But others, including Oreos, are largely unabashed guilty pleasures. The cookie brand, which recently introduced a “most stuff” offering with more cream filling, is the fifth most loved brand among Gen Z.

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Methodology

About Morning Consult Brand Intelligence:

The data used to determine the Most Loved Brands comes from Morning Consult’s flagship brand tracking platform, Brand Intelligence. Brand Intelligence is the most comprehensive brand tracking platform available, using thousands of daily surveys on over 3,000+ brands to help marketing and communications executives measure brand reputation in real-time.

Morning Consult’s Most Loved Brands 2019 edition uses over 400,000 interviews with U.S. adults to provide an in-depth view of the companies, organizations and brands that define American culture and commerce. The final rankings were determined using surveys conducted online among a national sample of adults. Between 1,000 and 56,000 adults rated each of the over 1,900 companies from January through February 2019. The average (median) company was surveyed over 11,000 times. The maximum margin of error for a given brand is plus or minus 3%.Morning Consult’s survey contains three principal sections: company evaluations, demographics and political tracking. The respondent first enters the survey and answers broad demographic questions. Then, he or she views a short battery of political tracking questions, which we include to help validate results. Next, he or she evaluates a randomized set of brands across a range of questions such as favorability, community impact and purchasing intent. Finally, respondents answer an additional set of demographic questions.

How this ranking was determined:

This year, Morning Consult is introducing an index to determine the Most Loved Brands, in order to offer a more comprehensive look at consumer perceptions. The Index is based on four metrics:

Favorability Score: The percentage of consumers with a favorable opinion of the brand.

Trust Score: The percentage of consumers who trust the brand to do the right thing.

Community Impact Score: The percentage of consumers who say the brand has a positive impact on their local community.

Net Promoter Score: Consumers are asked on a scale of 1-10 how likely they would be to promote a given brand. The NPS is determined by subtracting the percentage who said 0-6 from the percentage who said 9 or 10.

Each one of these numbers was added together in order to determine the index score. For example, take Amazon.

79.1% of consumers have a favorable opinion

58.7% of consumers say Amazon has a positive community impact

68.3% of consumers trust Amazon

55.8 is the Net Promoter Score for Amazon

79.1 + 58.7 + 68.3 + 55.3 = 261.9 (their index score)

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